Eagle, Kathleen (41 page)

"Don't
worry about him. He's fine."

A
casing of measureless weight cracked and fell away, leaving her breathless,
dizzy. She tipped her head back, resting it against the wall.

"Helen?

Where
was her voice? "H-he's with you?"

"Yeah."
There was a long and terrible pause, then a sigh. "Yeah, more or less. He
stowed away in the back of my pickup. He's fine."

"Oh,
thank God." She felt giddy, actually gushed. "Oh, that boy, that
rascal of mine. He hid in your pickup?"

"Helen,
I need to talk to Reese. Did you know about Jones?"

"I
know he's dead." Calm down now and get the facts, she told herself.
"Carter, where are you? Where's Sidney?"

"He's...
I've got him in a safe place, and for now he's fine. What do you know about
Bill Darnell? What do you know about Ten Star?"

"I
don't know very much, Carter. I really don't. I—" Why was he asking her
these questions? What did it matter what she knew, and what did he mean by
for
now he's fine?
"Please don't hurt my son."

"I
need to talk to my brother."

"He's
been out looking everywhere, and they've put out police bulletins, and people
in town are..."

Her
heart had vaulted into her throat, and the tears were rolling again. She hated
it. She hated that she was shaking so. She had to calm down and give the man
any assurances he might want.

"Carter,
whatever you owe, I'll find a way to pay. What good can it do to hurt a
child?"

"I
won't hurt him, and I don't want him to get hurt. I want..." She could
hear him breathing heavily, as though he was running. "I want to talk to
my brother, Helen. I'll call back in an hour."

He
hung up on her.

It
would be dark soon. What should she do? Call the police?

What
police? The tribal police were already there. Dozer Bobcat had been prowling
every dirt road and cow path within a ten-mile radius.

Carter
sounded scared. Kidnapping, was that what this was?

Obviously
he wasn't going to tell her. She had to find Reese.

It
was almost nightfall. Carter was pretty sure he'd been followed on his way back
to Pair-a-Dice City, which was why he'd avoided the switchboard and called
Helen from a pay phone downstairs. Then he'd slipped into a different suite.
The hour dragged by. He tried to think only of the boy, who was a tough one,
much like his father.

Unlike
his
uncle. Carter tried to think only of the boy, but his thoughts quickly returned
to himself, to what a pathetic fool he'd been, to all the promises he'd broken
and all the people he'd let down. Ten Star had used him. He'd been disgustingly
easy to use.

When
the time finally came, he made the call again. "Carter, where's my
son?" Reese demanded without preliminaries.

"I'm
going to tell you where he is, and I want you and Helen to pick him up and then
keep on driving. Don't look back."

"What's
this all about? Helen said he hid in the back of your pickup, and you—"

"He
did." Carter closed his eyes, took a deep breath, saw the faces of his own
children. "He wanted to miss his plane so he could be with his
parents."

"Carter,
I don't interfere with decisions you make about your kids."

"I
don't think we need to discuss child-rearing right now."

"Then
tell me where the hell you've got my son!"

"He's
safe. And, Reese, he doesn't know... He thinks this was all his idea and I'm
just helping him out, which I swear I wouldn't have done if I hadn't been so
damn scared."

"Scared?
You don't know the..." Reese paused, calling on his considerable
self-control. "Tell me, Carter, please."

"You
have to be careful. They've been following me. They'll probably stay with me
for a while at least."

"Who's
following you?"

"Either
Darnell or somebody who works for him. I thought they were going to kill me,
but I'm not so sure they're willing to do me that service."

"Service?
Carter,
where is my son?"

"I
couldn't hurt him, but I thought I could use him to get you to—"

"What
do you want, for crissake? I offered you—"

"Money,
I know. I appreciate that. Listen, I have a son, too." Carter rubbed his
temple with quivering fingertips, trying to erase the image. But it wouldn't go
away. "And a little girl. And a wife."

There
was a long pause. "They'll come back to you, little brother. You know they
will. I'll..."

"You'll
look after them?"

"Where
are you? Is Sid with you?" Reese waited for answers, and when he didn't
get them, he offered to save the day. "Just tell me where you are. I'll
get there as fast as it's humanly possible, and we'll take care of
everybody."

"You
probably could, too." Damn right he could. He was the Big Man, the Big
Gun. "I'm asking you to look after my family, Bro-gun. Promise me that,
and I'll tell you—"

"Anything,
I swear. Whatever they need me to do or provide, I'll see to it. You have my
word. Now where is he, Carter?"

"Remember
that night you took me out to the Badlands? It was just before you left
for—"

"He's
at that cabin?"

"Cabin?
Where?" Helen piped up in the background.

"Yeah,"
Carter said softly, imagining the look on her face, the ache in her heart.
"And he's alone."

"Shit.
Carter, I don't know if I can find that place anymore. Where are you?"

"Doesn't
matter. I'm leaving here anyway. I'm on my way home, and I figure I'll be
taking my tail with me, so you should be okay. Sidney should be okay."

"Listen,
you meet me—"

"You'll
find it, Bro-gun. You've got a sensitive heart. You follow that." Carter
smiled. His throat burned like hell. "You're my hero. You know that, don't
you?"

"Carter!"

Reese
slammed the phone down and turned to Helen, who was ready to bowl Dozer down
and fly out the door. "He hung up. He's—God, I hope he's not shittin' me
about that cabin." He looked at Dozer. "Why can't somebody arrest
that sonuvabitchin' Darnell?"

Dozer's
eyes lit up. "On what charge?"

"Being
a goddamned sonuvabitch!" Reese shouted as he grabbed the nearly useless
cell phone somebody had loaned him off the counter.

"Works
for me. Did he take the boy?"

"I
don't know what happened. I just know my brother's all messed up, and I pray to
God he's telling the truth about where Sid is." He ripped into the kitchen
drawer that was the repository of keys. "Dozer, I want you to stay here. I
don't know where Carter was calling from, but he said he was on his way
home."

"If
he's coming this way, you'll pass him."

"Then
I'll pass him. You catch him. Send somebody out to the casino, see if they've
seen him. Anywhere you can think he might..." He glanced at his friend.
"Remember that cabin back in Gray Horse Canyon?" Dozer nodded.
"That's where we're headed. I hope the ol' man left me some gas in his
pickup for once."

It
was the first time he had touched the pickup. His father hadn't been one for
keeping his vehicles tuned up, never one for getting gas until the gas gauge
was on Easy. But still it didn't surprise him that the old Chevy fired right
up. He gave the
wanagi
a thumbs-up when the needle floated all the way
up to Full, probably for the first time in Blue Sky history.

He
went back in the house for his father's .22 pistol, glanced at Helen as he
tucked it under the front seat, and muttered, "Rattlesnake
insurance."

To
her credit, Helen didn't ask too many questions he couldn't answer. She'd heard
his end of the conversation with Carter, and there was only one question that
mattered. The answer, he fully believed, was yes, their son was all right.

Purple
dusk descended slowly over the weathered gray earthen bones of the Badlands. If
the Black Hills sheltered the heart of the earth, if that sacred place had
given birth to the first Lakota, then the Badlands must have been placed close
by to complete the circle. The eerie moonscape was surely the image of death, a
haunting visual testament to the spectrum of the journey. The Badlands were
especially beautiful at dusk, all stark angles and smooth planes, a clean clay
canvas stippled with purple shadows and mystery.

But
it was a frightening tableau for the mother of a twelve-year-old boy. She was
sitting so far away, she looked almost like a child herself, lashed to the seat
and huddled close to the window, looking anxiously for signs from the land and
from her lover.

"Is
it... any of it familiar?" she asked him finally.

"Oh,
yeah. Familiar as the back of my—"

Ass.
Which
he had seen exactly once in a picture some idiot had snapped in a locker room.
Real familiar.

He
tried to comfort her with a small smile. "It's been a while, but I know
where I am. We'll find him."

Follow
your heart.
Great
line for a fairy tale.

"It's
getting dark," she whispered, and all he could think of was more fairy
tales, the kind with little girls wandering through big woods. She perked up,
returning his sad excuse for a smile. "But he's had all kinds of
wilderness experience this summer. He's been telling me, every time I talked to
him, about these excursions they'd go on for two or three days at a time."

"It's
only been a few hours. He'll be fine, as long as he stays where he is."

"If
he's at the cabin."

"He
is," Reese slowed the pickup. The shape of the horizon matched something
less distinct than memory but far more urgent. "I'm feeling a strong
pull."

The
road had never been more than tire tracks, and even that was largely overgrown.
He prayed he was going the right way, but he kept those prayers silent. Jesus,
had the cabin been this far back?

Christ,
he'd run out of ruts.

Goddamn
it, where was the road?

Sweet
Jesus, show me the way.

There
it was at last, a ramshackle cabin made of Black Hills pine, tucked between the
huge clay paws of a formation he had long ago dubbed "the Sphinx."

"There's
no light," Helen said. "Would he leave him without a light?"

Reese
had no answer for that. This stuff happened only in fairy tales, where the
wilderness was always dark. Fairy tales and Iktomi fables. It occurred to him
that he might be leading Helen into some kind of coyote's lair, some
shape-shifting spider's snare.

"It
doesn't look like..." Her face was inches from the windshield. "Would
he send us on a wild-goose chase?"

Shit.
Would he?

"Reese?"

"No!"
He slammed on the brake and the clutch, threw the gear into Park. His heart was
pounding like an old windup bedroom clock. He reached under the seat for the
flashlight and the .22. "I guess we'll find out, huh?"

Her
eyes widened at the sight of the pistol. "Reese, you'll scare him!"

"Snakes.
Just in case." He grabbed her hand when she released her seat belt.
"Listen, I want you to stay in the pickup. Keep it running, but stay put
until we know what's here."

"My
son's here. He has to be."

"Our
son."
He squeezed her hand. "He's our son, Helen."

"Our
son," she whispered. She knew what that meant. She accepted it.

He
touched her hand to his lips, then got out of the truck and trotted to the
cabin, pushed the door open and wielded the flashlight with his left hand. He
carried the gun in his right. "Sid? Are you here?"

The
night was still. Not even a damn cricket greeted him.

He
stepped inside. "Please be here, son," he whispered.

"Please
be okay."

He
checked behind the door, flashed his light into each of the four empty corners,
played it over the dirt floor. There was nothing there. No mice, no gum
wrappers, nothing. Disappointment rattled in Reese's aching chest.

"Reese?"

He
stepped outside to meet Helen. "It doesn't look like anybody's—"

"I'm
here."

Sidney
appeared at the corner of the cabin, dragging his sleeping bag like a shy and
humble Linus emerging from his hiding place behind a dugout somewhere in
bumfuck Egypt.

Reese
laughed with pure joy and blessed relief. Helen swooped down on the boy with
wings outstretched like Mother Goose.

"I
could tell it wasn't Uncle Carter's pickup," Sidney explained quickly.

Reese
flipped the pistol's safety latch and tucked the weapon into his belt. He
remembered his vow to hang onto the boy, hang on tight next time he had the
chance. But Sidney's mom had first dibs. Reese managed to get a hand on his
son's small shoulder. "This one was your grandfather's."

"Well,
I didn't know who it was, so I quick shoved my stuff out the back and
hid." Sidney stepped back when his mother released him, hanging his head.
"I'm glad you came. Uncle Carter said he'd be back for me tomorrow, but,
um... I'm just glad you came tonight. I was getting a little scared."

"We
were
getting a lot scared," Reese said.

"So
you're not gonna send me back to camp now, right?"

"We've
got a lot to talk about, but—"

"You
don't have to go back to camp if you don't want to," Helen put in quickly
as she maneuvered Sidney back under her wing. "But I don't want you to
think it's because of this. You should have told me..."

"I
did."

"No,
I mean—"

"Sid,
I gotta tell you, this was a real dangerous game for you to play," Reese
said. "If you ever pull a stunt like this again, you'll be paying serious
consequences."

The
boy looked up at him, ready to take his medicine right there and then. Reese
had all he could do to keep from praising him for it. He was so proud of the
kid his chest hurt. Later he'd sure tell him what a smart move it had been for
him to hide, not only himself but any sign that he'd been there.

He
put an arm around both of them and steered them toward the pickup. "But
this time I guess we can figure, with all the surprises we've had recently, we're
all about half a bubble off plumb."

"Huh?"
Sid said.

"Haven't
you used a carpenter's level?"

"Uh-uh."

Reese
and Helen buckled their son into the space between them on the bench seat, and
then they headed for the highway, letting silence reign over the jolting ride.
Explanations would come. Apologies would come. But right now, relief simply
felt so good.

The
way out seemed much shorter than the way in. The night sky was far brighter now
that the stars were popping out. Reese couldn't get over the dizzying high that
the flurry of discovery had provoked. As they approached the fence line along
the highway, he imagined his father stretching wire. It must have been the
mention of tools that had him seeing such things in the dark.